Another Ruby Rai? Bihar Class 12 topper can't explain basics of music

Controversies continue to dog Ganesh Kumar, who topped Bihar’s Class XII boards in humanities stream. He can play the drum but is ironically alien to most other musical instruments. He struggled in explaining what are 'sur', 'taal' and 'matra', considered the basics of music. 

The fraud came to light when he stumbled over questions on music, in which he scored 65 out of 70 in practical and 18 out of 30 in the theory. 

When grilled over his performance in the practical, he hymned a few lines of a Bollywood number, only failed to add rhythm or any note to the song. 

Ganesh said singer Lata Mangeshkar is known as 'Maithili Kokila', a title bestowed on folk singer Sharda Sinha, who is from Samastipur, where his school is situated. 

Where around 65 per cent of the students failed the Bihar board, Ganesh Kumar topped from the Arts stream.

His other accolades include him scoring 92 per cent in Hindi, 82 per cent in music and 42 per cent in social science. 

The 24-year-old appeared for the board exams at Ramnandan Singh Jagdip Narayan High school in Samastipur's Chhakhabib village and scored 82.6 per cent. 

Another Ruby Rai?

This incident inevitably takes us back to the case of Ruby Rai, who first called political science as ‘prodigal science’ and then said the subject is about cooking.

While she was arrested after failing a re-test at the board's office, we are yet to find out the consequences of Ganesh's alleged fraudulent result.

Prior to the test, The 2016 Bihar State Examination Board Class XII Arts topper was asked over a dozen questions from the syllabus by a seven-member expert committee of the board.

Although Rai had secured 444 marks out of 500 in the arts stream, when asked on camera, she seemed to have forgotten even the number of subjects in her course.

Ganesh’s school’s take on his result

A report from Samastipur said Kumar's school cancelled a function to felicitate him following the controversy. 

Kumar, who hails from Giridih in Jharkhand, said he had come to the village in search of livelihood some years ago and had taken admission in the school after some people asked him to do so. 

The school's founding secretary, Jawahar Prasad Singh, claimed that Kumar had himself decided to take admission in the school. 

State Education Minister Ashok Choudhary, after a meeting with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, told PTI, "The board chairman has himself said the evaluation process was carried out in a proper manner ... The media is always looking to rake up something negative." 

Choudhary asked if the "media person who posed queries to the topper is himself a great musician?" 

Answer sheets were evaluated by competent teachers and is it not justified to question the low pass percentage this year, he added. 

Meanwhile, a large number of students, who failed the exams, protested outside the BSEB's, prompting the police to resort to lathi charge.

#WATCH 24-year old Ganesh Kumar plays harmonium & sings. He topped 12th boards in Bihar from Arts stream & scored 65/70 in music practicals pic.twitter.com/O0K1wagGIx

— ANI (@ANI_news) June 1, 2017

With inputs from Agencies